Tallulah Willis on Dealing with Father Bruce Willis’ Dementia Diagnosis – Rolling Stone

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Tallulah Willis has opened up about her father Bruce Willis’ dementia, sharing how she struggled to stay present with her family during the early stages of his diagnosis.

In February, the Willis family announced that Bruce had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a rare disease that will greatly affect the actor’s quality of life. This news came almost a year after his family said that Die hard The actor would “step away” from his career after being diagnosed with “aphasia,” which was “affecting his cognitive abilities.”

In the first person essay of Vogue magazineIn Exclaim!, Willis writes of how she “knew something was wrong for a long time.”

It started with a kind of vague unresponsiveness, which the family compensated for with Hollywood hearing loss: ‘Speak! Die hard Messing with my dad’s ears,” Willis penned. “Later, the unresponsiveness widened, and sometimes I took it personally.”

She continued, “He’s fathered two kids with my stepmother, Emma Heming Willis, and I thought he’d lost interest in me. Although that couldn’t be further from the truth, my teenage brain tortured itself with some wrong math: I’m not pretty enough for my mom.” I don’t care enough about my dad.”

Willis, the youngest of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s three daughters, said she struggled to accept Bruce’s worsening condition due to her four-year battle with anorexia nervosa, and an ADHD diagnosis.

“I admit I’ve met Bruce’s decline in recent years with a share of avoidance and denial of which I’m not proud,” Willis said. “The truth is, I was too sick to handle it… While I was enveloped in bugs in my body, bragging about it on Instagram, my dad was quietly struggling.”

In the summer of 2021, she is forced to confront the reality of her father’s illness during a wedding on Martha’s Vineyard when the father of the bride gives a speech.

Suddenly I realized I would never have this moment, my dad talking about me in adulthood at my wedding. It was devastating. I left the dinner table, walked out, cried in the bushes.

Willis, who is in recovery from an eating disorder, said she is able to navigate her relationship with her father from a healthier perspective.

“I now have the tools to be present in all aspects of my life, especially in my relationship with my father,” Willis said. “I could bring him a bright, sunny energy, no matter where I was. In the past I was so afraid that grief would destroy me, but finally I felt I could show up and be relied upon.”